March 28th, 1891 — Bartonburg, Hogsmeade

Desdemona Pettigrew had been quiet during the family time following dinner—even by recent standards. Oh, she offered small smiles as appropriate and responded to direct questioning, but gone were the social graces she had employed during the Easter meal, her mind altogether occupied by the Witch Weekly article her mother had pulled aside, questioned her about, and furnished her with.

(Perpetua Collins had waited until after the meal “so as not to ruin the whole evening”. Dezzie was not convinced her mother’s efforts had been successful.)

She and her husband made their polite goodbyes rather early and made their way to the carriage that would take them home, accompanied by the silence that had punctuated their marriage for the better part of a year.

Ever since she had delivered their son and he had failed to draw breath.

Ever since Arthur had gone back to quidditch and she had been too terrified to follow suit.

Ever since she had begun to believe that everyone had been right to tell her that Arthur Pettigrew could not make her happy. In truth, though, it was not for lack of trying—it was simply because, at the end of the day, Desdemona was not meant to live happily ever after after all.

But this was something altogether different, something that could not be added to the pile of things they now ignored in their marriage.

After two blocks of their customary silence, Dezzie spoke up quietly, eyes intently meeting those of her husband.

"Do I need to be worried, Arthur?”

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   Bella Scrimgeour

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Art had seen and read the article before they went to his in-laws’ house, and had stuffed the magazine under the mattress before they left. The feeling in his chest was that he wanted to run, that he needed to run — except he couldn’t, it was Easter, and he couldn’t just leave.

He wanted to leave.

With everyone having survived the duel relatively intactand the scramble towards improving their finances... continuing... Art had thought that he would get a chance to breathe. But Easter didn't help, and neither did having his face plastered in Witch Weekly. His only hope, he guessed, was if no one believed Watchword.

Art was exhausted, was the thing, and had convinced himself that things would be alright after the duel — except that his personal life was still crumbling around him, he still owed the boxing venue money, and the thought of talking about it with anyone made his chest tighten in a way that felt suffocating. And everything was fine, or would be fine, as long as no one realized — except that of course someone had, Meredith Watchword had, and everyone was talking about him again, or thinking about talking about him, and no amount of being gregarious and affable through Easter dinner could mask the way things were crumbling.

He wanted to run. He couldn’t run. He sat across from Desdemona in the carriage with little Gwenog asleep under his arm, and all he could think about was a way out of this, and there wasn’t one.

He swallowed and looked at her, away from the loose curl that had made its way out of Gwenog’s braid. ”What?” Art asked, already suspecting — and this was just another way that he was going to fail her, wasn’t it.

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   Bella Scrimgeour

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“Mama…” she trailed off. He sounded innocent, and she needed him to be innocent, but whomever Meredith Watchword was, she had been terribly convincing.

“Mama showed me the latest issue of Witch Weekly,” Dezzie continued. Her voice was still quiet, so as not to disturb Gwenog, but it was more solid now. “It claimed you have been gambling.”

The again lingered unspoken in the air between them.

  

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Arthur inhaled, frozen, trying to keep his expression as neutral as possible. So Dezzie knew, and she knew because Perpetua knew, which meant that his in-laws knew, which meant — they were all going to be talking about him and he deserved it, this time, because it was not as if he did not know exactly what could happen.

He exhaled, but the motion was a little forced, deliberate. Quickly, Art ran through the things he could say: he could deny it, but she was sure to catch on sooner or later. He could admit it, and say that he had things under control, which was not too far from the truth — he could get things under control. There was still time. He could tell her it was hardly any money at all.

”It’s not like that,” Art said, instead, ”What the woman said. It’s not.”

It wasn’t about Dezzie. It was about Art and his own fucked up impulses, it was not about their marriage; it was not a reflection on her

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   Reuben Crouch

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She had known, of course, when they had begun their dance, that he had had problems in the past. His mother had been born a Lestrange, his cousin was Thomas Pettigrew; that Art lived such a modest lifestyle—a lifestyle that allowed him to furnish her with even a first glance, never mind a second—was only because he had lost his inheritance. Poor luck, perhaps, but even poorer self-control, a situation that Dezzie herself had worked to remedy.

Most of all, Desdemona blamed herself for not noticing the signs sooner.

“Are we in trouble?” she asked plainly, ignoring his protestations. Worry for Arthur, for their marriage, was secondary to worry about the future of the small human they had brought into the world.

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   Reuben Crouch

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Arthur pressed his fingers to his mouth without being aware of the gesture, a few short steps from holding his face in his hands, which was what he wanted to do. The gambling had been to anchor himself, at least at first — now he could not stop. But he had never wanted Dezzie to know, had never wanted her to see this side of him — they had met after Art had established a better living situation, after his gambling slowed to a trickle, when his bad habits were more charming than they were life-ruining.

He couldn’t lie to her, as much as he wanted to — because she may known, sure, but also because Meredith Watchword was right. If Desdemona wanted out, if she was done, then he couldn’t take that choice away from her.

”I owe the boxing venue money,” he admitted, like pulling teeth, from behind his hand, ”But — we’re not in trouble. It’s under control. And it’s not enough money that they would come for anything.”

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Somehow, his words weren’t as reassuring as he likely intended them to be. Dezzie’s face, which had been entirely neutral though not quite hopeful, fell entirely.

He owed the boxing venue money.

But it was under control.

It wasn’t enough money, whatever that meant.

The carriage’s rumbling came to a stop as they returned home, Dezzie not replying as the door was opened. There would be time enough once Gwenog was properly seen to bed, once they were behind closed doors without the world to bear witness.

Reuben Crouch might brawl in the streets, but Desdemona Pettigrew would not.

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   Reuben Crouch

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He should have expected the look on her face but Art felt like he couldn’t breathe as he watched her, waiting for a blow that didn’t come. Oh. He should have seen this coming. She wasn’t going to fight with him here in the carriage or outside; she was going to wait until they were in the house.

Arthur wanted to leave again.

He steeled himself and scooped Gwenog into his arms as they left; she settled against his shoulder. He almost hoped that she would wake but she stayed sleeping, settled peacefully against his shoulder long enough for him to stop into the nursery and set her down in her crib. He stepped back outside into the hall to face his wife.

He was still at a loss and closed the nursery door behind him, and gave her a look that was, if anything, overwrought and helpless.

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“We cannot endure losing the very roof above our heads,” Desdemona said, voice still soft so as not to draw undue attention from the small household staff, once the nursery door was firmly closed.

It was only after she said the words that We did not include Arthur himself.

He had, after all, already lost one house to his gambling, in the “before”—a before she had been quite certain would never be replicated.

“How long has this been going on?” she asked, tears finally beginning to develop in her eyes, though not yet threatening to spill over. “Weeks? Months?”

Years?

  

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Arthur couldn’t look her in the eyes, although he was approximating it fairly well — he was looking at her forehead instead, listening, and his hands were pressed against his sides to hold him steadfast in the hallway. They couldn’t lose the house. They weren’t going to lose the house, although Art did not own it — he would lose other things first, like furniture, or a household staff member, or maybe the venue would just break one of his fingers and be done with it. This did not feel like information Desdemona would have wanted to know, though — it was damning enough that he had gamed this out — and she was nearly in tears, and he wanted to hold her but did not want to find out if she would let him.

”Two months,” Art admitted, ”Just two months, Dez, I promise.”

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   Reuben Crouch

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“And how—how much?” this she was quite certain she did not want to know, just as she was certain she needed to know. Dezzie was not at all sure how things could be made right, but it was plain that her ignorance had not been doing them any favours.

  

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Arthur pushed one hand through his hair in a nervous gesture. ”Five galleons to the boxing venue,” he said, like it was a confession. ”And then — two before then.” So seven galleons overall, which was not bad, things could be worse, except that was nearly a week’s wages, and they did not have her income anymore.

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Mercifully, it was not as bad as she had been expecting—but then, Desdemona did not entirely trust that he was being completely honest with her. And why should she?

For two months (if not longer), he had been lying to her, squandering their limited income , staying out at all hours with who knew who doing God knew what; why should she believe he wasn’t trying to tell a believable lie to ease her well-founded worries?

She gave a small, almost imperceptible nod.

“Regardless of your intentions,” she uttered softly, “regardless of the amount, it was still noticed, Arthur—still plastered in Witch Weekly for all and sundry to see, to read, to know our lives!” The words poured out of her louder and louder, tears streaming freely down her cheeks, until the last tore out of Desdemona in a loud sob.

  

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He wanted to touch her but still was not sure he’d be allowed to, because Arthur was a tactile person, he was bad at words and he was bad at this sort of confrontation, where things were so clearly his fault.

”It’s not —” Arthur cut himself off because he didn’t think she would take this the way he did. The gambling was not about her; it was not a reflection on her. It was about him, and the way he could not process the well of feeling inside him, the way he could not handle having failed her by leaving her alone to miscarry. He looked externally for a way to handle his own feelings and found it primarily in alcohol, Watchword had written, and she was right, wasn’t she?

Last time he had left, cut and run in the hopes of maintaining a household he’d gambled, gone to stay with friends-of-friends in practically every city in Britain. He had alternated between gambling what little remained of the Pettigrew fortune and engaging in strung-out, desperate attempts to stop. He’d settled into it eventually, the comforting weight of being a known fuck-up, with no one expecting any better from him.

Dez met him in the after, when age or lack of resources had settled him a bit, at the beginning of his painstaking process of stopping. He had never wanted to have her meet him like this, Arthur Pettigrew in the middle of a series of fuck-ups, Arthur Pettigrew with no self control, Arthur Pettigrew who was piloted to the casino, to betting, because he could not stop himself and because it was the only way he could stop feeling everything.

He couldn’t even promise her it was done, was the thing, and he knew it.

”I’m so sorry, Desdemona,” he said instead, and took a step forward to try to hug her.

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   Aldous Crouch, Minty Scrimgeour [Sofia], Reuben Crouch

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Instinctively, Desdemona took a step back, arms crossed tight against her chest and a combination of hurt and helplessness in her eyes.

“I would leave,” she said coolly, “if I did not know you would use it as an excuse to make matters worse.”

Even as Dezzie said the words, she knew they were untrue.

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Arthur flinched as if she had struck him, and took a few steps away from her, so that his back was pressed against the wall of the hallway. It took him a moment to muster a response.

”I can leave,” Art said, and fuck, he wanted to, because it sounded less exhausting than fixing things. ”I can leave and I can stay with my mother —” she would not speak to him for a while after this and he knew it, but he could say he was going there ”— and come back in a few days when my head is straight again. And it’ll never happen again.”

This was not a promise he could keep, he knew that too — it was a promise he could make, though.

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   Reuben Crouch

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